


how many nights do you lie dreaming

by saltwaterheartstrings



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, obligatory post s4 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 16:44:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4674011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltwaterheartstrings/pseuds/saltwaterheartstrings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first night is never the hardest. Hook knows how this goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how many nights do you lie dreaming

\--

The first night is never the hardest.

The analog watch Emma had given him a month ago tells him by the light of a candle that it’s 3 AM, and sleep is the last thing on his mind. The nervous adrenaline has all gone to his stomach, it seems, and he feels too sick to even consider trying to sleep, so he doesn’t; instead, he keeps the candle lit and reads sentence after blurry sentence about Camelot from the books he’d smuggled from the library under his jacket.

The first night isn’t the hardest, no. Not by far. The first night is consumed with echoes of Emma and the dagger and Emma and Milah (and Emma, again and again,) and he dry heaves over the side of the Jolly Roger after two hours of reading despite not having touched alcohol in twenty-four hours, but part of that sickness is knowing it will get much worse.

He knows how this goes. 

\--

The first morning after, now that is difficult. 

David calls him to meet at Granny’s, so he shows up even though the tradition of it bothers him like infection in a wound. When they meet at Granny’s it should be for some common crisis and his Swan should be holding court with him awestruck at her side, but she’s not there, so he has the seat across from David and Snow all to himself. He sits exactly across from David by habit, but the gap between his body and the wall only grows larger as the conversation stumbles on until he’s at the edge of the booth.

He feels like he’s already fallen off onto the tile, like he’s already bruising. 

Snow glares maternally until he’s eaten half the French toast she had already ordered for him. He tries not to be angry that she’s decided to watch out for him when Emma is in who knows what danger, but he can’t help it. He thinks he manages to hide it. When he pushes the plate away, bile rising in his throat, her face only turns sadder. 

Hook only stays at Granny’s long enough for Regina to show up with nothing useful. He claps Henry on the shoulder before he goes, though, for reasons he'd rather not put into words.

\--

After breakfast he walks back to his ship. Maybe he’s still in shock, because this is where his memory starts losing pieces: the walk is vivid and cold, one footstep after another down to the docks and one breath after another from a chest that somehow feels somewhat like it had been stabbed yesterday, but he doesn’t remember stepping onto the Jolly or climbing down the ladder to his cabin to retrieve the books. Next thing he knows he’s walking again, this time to the library on autopilot with the books held securely between his elbow and his jacket. The sun is out, or at least he thinks it is. 

Belle isn’t in the library. The watch Emma gave him points out that it’s only eight, of course she isn’t in the library yet- and that voice sounds like Emma too when it laughs as he leans down to pick the lock.   
He puts the three books he’d taken last night on the return desk. Part of him wants to grovel for even causing the slightest inconvenience by taking them without checking them out: Belle’s had that effect on him for a while now. 

Another part of him wants to rip the library apart. 

Balance is key this time around.

\--

Belle shows up an hour later with dark circles beneath her eyes. She doesn’t mention how the crocodile’s doing and she doesn’t ask how he got inside and he’s disproportionately grateful.

\--

He doesn’t sleep the second night either, but he does manage to close his eyes without hyperventilating; he’s not quite hopeful, but he’s closer to it than he was the night before. He doesn’t drink a drop of rum because he knows that if he starts he won’t stop until he drowns. 

\--

Henry is the one who texts an invitation for breakfast the next morning. Hook shows up right on time because it’s Henry asking, and Henry is part Emma and part Baelfire and he can’t fail this one too, is the sudden desperate thought repeating in his head. He can’t afford to fail this one at all.

The lad is trying to be hopeful. “How will we get to Camelot?” he asks right off the bat before Ruby even comes over to take their orders. 

“As far as I know, it should be just like traveling to any other realm,” Hook says. His voice feels rough with disuse. “That should be old hat by now, aye?”

Gods, but the boy looks like his father did. “But we don’t have any more beans.”

Quite right, that. They can’t even manage what should be the easiest part of their endeavor. Hook sips his coffee to cover his frustration. “Does Regina have any ideas?”

Henry huffs, gaze traveling down to the greasy surface of the table. “Regina just said she thinks that Emma’s gonna come to us eventually.” 

Eventually isn’t nearly good enough, and the thought is written across Henry’s face too, because Emma shouldn’t have to be alone for all the time between “today” and “eventually.” She’s already been alone for far too long, and they will not give up on finding her, not even for a little while.

\--

The next few days come too quickly and much too slowly; they get worse because it’s longer without Emma and they get better because there’s Henry now. 

Regina does care. Henry knows it and Hook knows it and the Charmings know it, and she still calls occasionally with questions or insights that fall flat, but her focus is far from Emma’s disappearance and it’s not a secret. Granted, the Zelena situation is a tangled one and has a rapidly approaching deadline (six months, now,) but the difference in the attention she gives the two matters is driving a wedge between her and Henry. There are no arguments that Hook is privy to between mother and son and the lad still sleeps at the Mills mansion, but there is more than one reason why Henry goes straight to the Jolly after school and stays past dinnertime. 

Not to say, that is, that they do nothing but feverishly research Camelot, Merlin, and the Dark One’s dagger. There are only so many books about those three subjects in Storybrooke’s library and only so many brainstorming sessions, so now a lot of time goes by where Henry does his homework and Hook helps with the math in between rereading Arthurian legends. 

The whole Camelot idea could be a dead end anyway, but he never says that to Henry, who still seems excited. 

He takes the lad sailing some days when the wind is blowing. Charming comes over every now and then after his time at the station and it’s nice, the three men "hanging out" as Henry liked to say, but he never took anyone except for Henry out on the water. It just wouldn’t seem right. 

So the days are alright for a while.

\--

The nights aren't getting any better. 

Exhaustion makes him sleep after almost seventy-two hours and almost every night afterward, but that’s when the dreams start. Usually he wakes up in a sweat with the last images already fading from his mind, but sometimes they remain. 

And Emma hadn’t ever been in his bed, he had never spent a night with her in his arms- but the loneliness of a cold bed is multiplied by the hollow-chested knowledge that she is not just up the street and not in the town at all.

He starts drinking.

And then the nights get much, much worse. 

\--

He hates that they had to wait for it, but the ‘eventually’ Regina had spoken of comes one day.

She is dressed in black, and her face is cold, and when she kisses him she tastes like salt. 

She’s beautiful. 

\--

He fights for the days, now. Fights her, fights the darkness, fights himself.

He’s already lost the nights. 

\--

**Author's Note:**

> title borrowed from kodaline "pray". 
> 
> first fic on ao3 :)


End file.
